Phenomenology and Religion: New Frontiers

morny joy

proposed as a caring and self-reflexive responsibility for all others, can
respond to this criticism. Recognition would then no longer reinforce
modes of subjectivity that reflect paternalistic or elitist ways of
granting admission to established echelons of privilege once certain
criteria are met.

Responsibility, Solicitude, and Justice

Toward the conclusion of Study 9 in Oneself as Another, Ricoeur reflects
on the nature of recognition and the process of “imputation” — a key
term in his development of an ethics of intersubjectivity. Imputation
actually involves two processes: that of a critical self-estimation (or
self-esteem^14 ) and that of responsibility (accepting accountability for
an activity).^15 Ricoeur states:

If... I had to name a category that corresponded to the categories of

imputation and responsibility... I would choose the term recognition,

so dear to Hegel in the Jena period and throughout the subsequent

course of his work. Recognition is a structure of the self reflecting on

the movement that carries self-esteem toward solicitude and solicitude

toward justice. Recognition introduces the dyad and plurality in the

very constitution of the self.^16

It is also in Oneself as Another that Ricoeur describes various phe n-
omenol ogical dimensions of the capable self [homo capax]. In Studies
2 and 4 Ricoeur depicts the different aspects of speaking and acting.

14. Ricoeur also notes: “We call self-esteem the interpretation of ourselves medi-
    ated by the ethical evaluation of our actions. Self-esteem is itself an evaluation
    process indirectly applied to ourselves as selves.” Ricoeur, in Peter Kemp and
    David Rasmussen, eds., The Narrative Path, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989, 99.


15. Ricoeur has described this relationship: “Imputation and responsibility are
    synonymous, the only difference being that it is actions that are imputed to some-
    one and it is persons that are held responsible for actions and their consequences”
    (Ibid.,101). Ricoeur’s use of this term is influenced by Kant. He undertakes an
    examination and reclamation of “imputability” and its Kantian origin in The Just,
    trans. D. Pellauer, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000, 13–19.


16. Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, trans. K. Blamey, Chicago: University of Chicago
    Press, 1992, 296.